Tracks of His Tears
by helloelizabeth
Summary: CP Coulter's Daltonverse. Logan reflects on his friendship with Julian as he delivers a speech. It becomes clear that Julian didn't share as much with him as he thought. Review, if you dare.


**Tracks of His Tears**

Logan quietly turned the knob of Julian's old room. He ignored the dust he felt on his fingertips, which told him of how long it had really been since anyone entered.

He sat down at Julian's old desk in his dorm room. Running his hand across the smooth glass top, he looked at the ticket stubs and old photos that Julian had slid underneath. Logan's face looked slightly blurry in one of them, because of a white circle of powder was stuck to the glass. He scratched away at it, then at the few others around it until there was no more.

Logan noted the circular shape, thinking to himself that they looked just like -Teardrops. They were Julian's dried teardrops, the tracks of his tears.

He stumbled away from the desk with one hand over his mouth, his own eyes burning with shame at having discovered something so personal, evidence of Julian's unhappiness.

"Jules wasn't the kind of guy who liked to show weakness. I never saw the tracks of his tears, because he didn't often let people in." _But I did see them, once, before I was shut out again._

Logan stood at the raised podium as he addressed the crowd below. He was vaguely aware that his words were being recorded by a camera crew. _But do they care at all?_

"His life in the spotlight shaped who he grew up to be. He and I were both incredibly lonely as children, which made our bond as friends even stronger." _He understood me like no one has before._

His eyes flitted over a handsome brunet with a faraway expression on his face. He was sitting in the audience a row behind Julian's family, with visitors from abroad. The boy reached up to wipe his eyes, and Logan could see that his cufflinks had small Parisian flags printed on them. _Who was he? Had he and Julian been close? _

"Julian was someone different to everyone he knew. To me, he was my best friend, my stabilizer. He proved that I really was capable..." Logan's voice lowered, "Capable of having friends, that I wouldn't scare everyone away."

"I see him everywhere I go, beyond magazine photographs and movie posters." _That's because he's everything._

Logan fiddled with the folded paper that was his speech. He wasn't reading it. In fact, the words he spoke were nothing close to the ones on the page. Like singing a song, this came straight from his heart.

"I see a sunset and I think of our summer nights in the Hamptons, lying on his dock and playing my iPod too loud." _...Until Derek accidentally kicked it in the lake. _"I see a Mercedes car and I'm reminded of Julian's sixteenth birthday, when he bought himself his first car." _...Not to mention three days later, when I almost crashed his first car into a tree._

"He's the quiet boy who does nice things for people without ever telling them, and he's also the loud kid who plans the senior prank on the underclassmen." _He was planning on bringing in the Something Damaged cast to pose as students..._

"The best moments of my life have been spent with Julian and Derek." Logan felt his throat clench and he wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. "We always perfect together, the summers spent in the Hamptons, winters in Paris." _Always perfect._

"There was so much I didn't know about him, so much I just never had the time to experience. There are some parts of our friendship that I'll regret for the rest of my life." Logan paused to catch his breath and gazed over the crowd with reddened green eyes. Of course he had regrets. The obvious, tragic element of their friendship would haunt him forever.

_ How many people in this room blame me for his death? I was his best friend, but I was never the best for him. _

Tears started flowing slowly, then faster and faster. Logan gasped out the last few lines of his speech, trying for all it was worth to hold on to the control he knew he lost a long time ago.

"For almost four years, Julian lit up my world. He was a true friend, but he's so much more than that. Jules taught me what it truly means to be a man." _And I'll love him forever._


End file.
